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Wiley Blackwell Publishers/ Australian Historical Association Prize Winner 2007 |
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The Organising Committee of the 2007 Australian Historical Association Conference, Engaging Histories, held at University of New England, Armidale (23–26 September), together with the publisher, Wiley-Blackwell, established a prize of $500 and a citation for the best paper presented by a current postgraduate student in any field or period of history at the conference. The award was also open to papers delivered in the Australian Mining History Association Conference and Seventh Armidale Seminar in Mediterranean Antiquity, both of which formed part of this year's AHA conference. The prize attracted an impressive field of thirteen entries, and the Organising Committee is very pleased to announce the winner as:
Amanda Barry (University of Melbourne) for
The judges were unanimous in their selection of Amanda Barry's 'Think Global, Act Local: Aboriginal education history and the British Empire', as the winner of the AHA Wiley-Blackwell prize for a student paper presented at the AHA regional conference in Armidale, September 2007 - and they also agreed that a more appropriate title might be chosen, to better reflect the themes of the paper. Using the lens of transnational and comparative history, this paper examined approaches to the education of Australian Indigenous children in the first decades of colonization. Emphasising the influence of Protestant humanitarianism, the paper convincingly argued that concepts of race were filtered through aspirations to 'improve' and 'Christianize' children, whose condition was understood more in terms of malleability and educability than innate condition. In tracing links between missions to Britain's new industrial slums and those to its colonies, the paper brings a fresh perspective to an understanding of the values and aspirations current in the early years of Australian settlement. The judges particularly appreciated the insights brought to the topic through - for example - the exploration of ideas of mass education, the 'civilising mission' in relation to class as much as race, and the ambivalence within the 'colonial project' in relation to practices of 'protection'. The paper is suggestive in noting the factors which, by the 1840s, saw an end to these experiments in reform, and establishes very promising themes for further research while also highlighting complexity and diversity within the practice of empire. It is, throughout, well researched, carefully crafted and finely argued, and a worthy recipient of this prize. The judges also commended the following papers:
Susan McClean (University of Technology, Sydney)
Karen Downing (Australian National University)
Meredith Lake (University of Sydney)
Chris Soeterboek (University of Melbourne)
Judges:
Associate Professor Melanie Oppenheimer (University of Western Sydney) Dr. Neil Morpeth (University of Newcastle) Dr. Nicholas Brown (Australian National University/National Museum of Australia) The Organising Committee would like to thank all of the postgraduate students who submitted papers; the judges; and Wiley-Blackwell, the Australian Historical Association, History Australia, and the University of New England for their support of the prize.
4 February 2008
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Page constructed by Carolyn Brewer Last modified by Carolyn Brewer 1 February 2009 1105 URL: http://www.theaha.org.au/awards/wiley_blackwell/winners.htm |